Cottage cheese pancakes

These super thick and fluffy cottage cheese pancakes are inspired by the syrniki-inspired pancakes from Arthurs Nosh Bar in Montreal!

Why you’ll love these pancakes

• Pillowy and flavorful: These unique pancakes are adapted the incredibly delicious pancakes from Arthurs Nosh Bar in Montreal! Modeled after Eastern European syrniki (cheese pancakes), these are caramelized around the edges with pillowy, almost custardy middles where the cottage cheese makes for gooey interiors. They’re well-salted, not too sweet and perfect for a dousing of syrup.
• Adapted for success at home: These are adapted from the official Arthurs Nosh Bar pancake recipe from their cookbook. I found the original recipe didn’t quite emulate the same fluffy texture as the restaurant. But I found that a technique that you’d probably never use in a restaurant (steaming the pancakes) helped achieve the thick and custardy texture of my dreams!
• Packed with protein: The original recipe uses nearly a 1:1 ratio of sour cream to cottage cheese, but I found that Greek yogurt provides a perfect substitute (and adds more protein).

How I adapted the recipe

When I visited to Montreal this past spring, I received many, many recommendations for the pancakes from Arthurs Nosh Bar. They 100% lived up to the hype–simple, doughy and perfect in a pool of maple syrup that tasted better than any syrup I’d ever had. I immediately went home and looked up the recipe. Fortuitously, their official cookbook had just been released, so I gave the official recipe a try!

The original recipe calls for almost equal parts buttermilk, sour cream and cottage cheese with just a tablespoon of melted butter and whipped egg whites folded into the batter. They was tasty, but they didn’t bear much resemblance to the original pancakes I remembered. But after four rounds of tweaking, I’m thrilled with the final result.

Here are all the changes I made and why:

• Greek yogurt instead of sour cream: I’d rather save high-fat sour cream for cakes, so I tried swapping in full-fat Greek yogurt instead and it worked well!
• Used a mixture of milk and yogurt for buttermilk: Using both yogurt and buttermilk (an ingredient I rarely have on hand) felt repetitive, so I swapped the buttermilk for a mixture of milk (or water) and Greek yogurt. I also reduced the overall amount of “buttermilk” because my pancakes were coming out quite flat. Less liquid = less runny pancakes.
• Higher ratio of flour and baking powder: After the second test, the pancakes were still turning out too flat, so I increased the amount of flour and doubled the baking powder. This made nicely thick pancakes!
• No whipped egg whites: I had a hunch that these pancakes could still work without whipped egg whites, so I just added the whole egg straight into the ingredients for the last test. And they were still just as fluffy!
• Oil instead of butter: The original recipe calls for a heaping tablespoon of melted butter. When added to cold ingredients (cottage cheese, yogurt, milk), the butter would immediately seize. So instead of warming up the cold ingredients to incorporate the butter only to try to cool them back down before cooking (the original recipe calls for chilling the batter before cooking), I decided to just use oil instead.
• Steam to cook the middles: I finally had the very thick batter of my dreams, but when I tried to cook them like regular pancakes, the middles remained raw. I found that adding just a bit of water and steaming the pancakes for 2 minutes helped cook them all the way through and fluff them up into tall, moist-centered pancakes.

Ingredients

• Cottage cheese: I recommend whole milk cottage cheese in this recipe as higher fat will always taste better. However, skim or low fat cottage cheese will also work.
• Greek yogurt: Again, whole milk Greek yogurt will yield the best results. I tested this recipe with Trader Joe’s whole milk Greek yogurt and Fage–I really think Fage’s thicker texture yielded better results, but again you can use what you have on hand.
• Milk: I tested this recipe with whole milk. However, plant-based milks should also work and if you don’t have any milk on hand, water will also work!
• Egg: The original recipe calls for whipped egg whites. I tested this recipe both ways and didn’t notice a significant difference–I add the egg straight in!
• Oil: You’re using just a tiny amount of oil, so literally any kind will work–olive, vegetable, canola, grapeseed, coconut, etc. If you use low fat cottage cheese or yogurt, I’d recommend increasing this slightly.
• Sugar: This recipe uses just a tiny amount of sugar for barely sweet pancakes that go well with lots of syrup. You can increase this amount to 2 tbsp if you want the pancakes themselves to be lightly sweet.
• Baking powder: We’re using a generous 2 tsp of baking powder for extra lift.
• Salt: A whole tsp of salt may seem like a lot, but I find it lends itself to well-seasoned pancakes. If you like things less salty, you can reduce this to 1/2 tsp.

How to make cottage cheese pancakes

These pancakes are easy to make in one bowl. The resulting mixture is extremely thick, so don’t be surprised if it looks more like a dough than a batter!

Storage and reheating

These pancakes will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. I like to either microwave them or pop them in a toaster oven for easy reheating!